£500? £5000? £50,000? Obviously there’s no absolute answer to this, but we have to find some way of monetising our work, and that process has to be explained openly and honestly to our clients. It's a delicate issue, and people often feel uncomfortable talking about money, but it's important.

I’ve been fortunate enough to receive a number of requests for work recently, from genuinely interesting people with really interesting projects. However, on more than one occasion the dialogue, over a series of email, has broken down on the issue of cost. I’ll summarise:

Client: Hey there, I'd like you to develop a website for me. How much will it cost?

Me: Great! What type of website do you need? What type of functionality? How many pages? Do you want to sell things or just inform customers?

Client: Well, it's got to do this, that and a bit of the other, not forgetting it's got to look great too.

Me: Absolutely. Ok, well typically a job of this size and complexity will cost around £3000.

Client: *silence*

And that's it, I'll never hear from them again. I'm not complaining, but I am interested in what leads to this situation in the first place. What causes the misunderstanding between potential client and designer over the value of a website?

After much thought, I think we're both to blame.

Things for the Client to think about

It's a cliche, but time is money. If you're dealing with a professional, expect to pay accordingly. Sometimes it's easy to misunderstand that what might seem like a simple website, will actually take many hours, days or weeks to complete.

I had a client come to me some years ago, who worked as a very well paid professional in his field. After an initial consultation, I got back to him with a quote for the project that I'd anticipated would take around 5-7 days costing around £1500.

At first he was shocked by the price. After all it was only a relatively small website with limited functionality. At this point I asked him how much it would cost _me to hire him_ for 5 days, to which he replied £4000. After that he pretty much got it.

Once clients understand how long good quality websites take to build, and that the designer is a professional just like them, who charges as such, it makes the cost more understandable.

"But I know someone who will build it for £300" you cry. Fantastic, good for you. Go for it, but remember you get what you paid for. Imagine I came to hire you and then told you that I could get someone half your price, what would you say to me?

There's no doubt that you can get websites made on the cheap these days. There's a terrible trend on project auction sites where clients post projects and "designers" post increasingly ludicrous low bids to get the work. I don't get it. Surely nobody wins in this situation. The designer either doesn't have the skills or can't be motivated to do a good job on a project netting them $200. As a client, you're invariably going to be dissatisfied with a job that doesn't meet expectations or do what it was meant to do.

So what is a website worth? In short it's worth what it means to you and your business. Does it make money for you? Does it increase customers? Does it improve your service?

If you have to pay £10,000 for a website, but it makes you £50,000 over the next 2 years, is that worth it? I think so.

Things for the Designer to think about

Many of the problems with communication come from a lack of clarity on the part of the designer. Let's be honest, most clients won't know how much time and effort goes into building a site, and why should they? It's not their job. It's ours.

The problem is, most designers don't want to put a price list on their website. The ones that do are often of the type:

*Bronze Package:* 5 pages and contact form - £300
*Silver Package:* 10 pages, contact form and submit to 10 search engines - £500
*Gold Package:* Up to 20 pages, contact form, submit to 10 search engines and rotating 3D company logo - £700

You get the idea, and you probably don't want to go there. If you understand that every business is different with its own unique set of requirements, you'll know that you can't shoehorn a website into what amounts to little more than an off the shelf template. You'll want to listen, discuss and advise your client on what a website can and should do for them, before building something custom designed for their business requirements. That's what you want to do right? Just checking.

So what do we do?

I was recently impressed by the Clearleft site and their approach:

"A medium-sized site with a simple content management system (CMS) could take 1–3 months and cost upwards of £10k, while a large-scale web application could take in excess of 3 months and cost upwards of £40k.

We also provide a design and XHTML/CSS template creation service. Prices start at around £3000, depending on the number of designs and templates required."

This does 2 things. First of all it sets a benchmark for how much they charge. They're certainly not cheap, so being honest up front will presumably keep the enquiries down to only those people who are genuinely serious. If a client wants to pay £300 for a site he's not going to get in touch after reading this.

Secondly, it has enough flexibility in the scenarios and costs described to demonstrate that every website is unique and the service is always tailored. It's honest and at the same time practical for potential clients visiting the site.

As you might tell, I like this approach a lot, and it's often one I use when I meet clients face to face.

So what is a website worth? It's worth your time, effort and experience. It's a competitive industry, but don't sell yourself short. You'll only regret it in the long run.